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Watching Together at a screening last month, I found myself wowed, impressed, and mesmerized by the movie’s final shot. The film builds well to its freaky, body horror-centric climax, which sees Alison Brie’s Millie and Dave Franco’s Tim submit and embrace the force that is fusing them together, and I left the theater instantly curious how the final shot came together with the Mille/Tim hybrid that greets Mille’s parents at the door of their home when the older couple arrives for a Sunday visit.

Fortunately, one of the best aspects of my job is that I get to satisfy that kind of curiosity via interviews with filmmakers and actors, and that’s exactly what I got to do when I sat down with writer/director Michael Shanks, Alison Brie and Dave Franco during the Los Angeles press day for the new horror movie. In separate interviews (as captured in the video above), I asked them all about how that final shot was accomplished, and not only did I learn about the execution of some amazing special and visual effects work, but I discovered that the married stars have a hilarious “qualm” with the final look.
Transcript
00:00But I do want to ask about the final shot because, like, the merge, how was it?
00:04Was that an actor? Is that visual effects? I mean, how are they?
00:06The very final shot, that is a combination of practical and visual effects.
00:12So it's Allison in a wig with shoulder pads with Dave Franco makeup eyebrows
00:19and Dave Franco makeup contact lenses.
00:22And then our visual effects supervisor did the comp herself of cutting out Dave's nose
00:27and jawline and kind of, like, sticking it together.
00:30Oh, my God.
00:30And, yeah, I'm so proud with how it came out because that's been in there from the first draft
00:35of just, like, the movie has to end in this shot.
00:37I don't know why, but I just kind of felt like that's the end, yeah.
00:39Sure.
00:40Creating that, I mean, can you both talk about that, going through the makeup process?
00:44Yeah, well, so the final shot is, it's my body, it's me.
00:49We shot me with some shoulder pads with Dave's eyebrows and a wig.
00:54And then we shot Dave's face, Dave in the same spot.
00:58And they ended up, you know, overlaying, doing the VFX.
01:01It's Dave's nose, it's Dave's jaw, it's Dave's Adam's apple.
01:04The funniest thing about that to me is we did a couple test screenings before Sundance.
01:10And in the test screenings, you know, we were testing levels of how much of Dave's face,
01:15how much of my face, but the audio wasn't mixed yet.
01:17So it was my voice.
01:19And hearing my voice would send signals to the audience's brain.
01:23So I would sneak in the back of these test screenings.
01:26The audience didn't know I was there.
01:27And after one of them, they're asking questions.
01:29And what did you think about this final person?
01:31And how did it make you feel?
01:32And what did it look like to you?
01:33And one person goes, it just looks like Alison Brie.
01:36And I turned to one of our producers and I was like, that's the meanest thing anyone's ever said.
01:41Because we will say one qualm we have with that final creature is we were just disappointed with how unattractive.
01:49We wish they were a little more attractive.
01:51Like the merging of our two faces made that face.
01:55They're not unattractive, but we just wanted them to be a little cuter.
01:58Yeah.
01:59So it's not the face that either of you would kind of make out with if you saw them looking
02:03on the big screen.
02:03No.
02:04I don't think I want to make out with any version of both of us merged anyway, no matter how
02:09attractive they are.
02:10I don't know if that's true for me, but.
02:12Interesting.
02:14Yeah.
02:15I'll have to see some different versions and decide.
02:17I'll have to see some different versions of the other side.
02:18I'll have to see some different versions of the other side.
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